


Under the Bleachers at the Ass Crack of Dawn

by kmcgay



Category: Marvel (Comics)
Genre: (they say fuck and shit a lot), (well mostly Carol), Alternate Universe - High School, CarolJess Minibang 2018, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Mentions of homophobia, Mentions of underage drinking, language typical of real high shool seniors, mentions of child abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-09-01
Packaged: 2019-07-05 11:31:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15862752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kmcgay/pseuds/kmcgay
Summary: Carol Danvers, the star-everything at her school, receives the worst news of her life. Unable to take the pressure anymore, she goes to vent her frustrations under the bleachers before school. Unbeknownst to her, it is also the go to hiding place for the school's resident Weird Loner British Chick, Jessica Drew. The two bond over bad dads, bad health, and trying to figure out whether the other likes girls or not.





	Under the Bleachers at the Ass Crack of Dawn

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly cannot believe it took me this long to write a Caroljess fic. The only thing I believe less is that Carol is mostly the POV character and not Jess. Written for the Caroljess Minibang 2018 over at https://caroljessshipevents.tumblr.com/ Some lovely art by my partner for this event, Sol, can be found here: http://natwasp.tumblr.com/post/177641057689/finally-i-can-post-this-its-my-piece-for-the  
> Fair warning though it's cute as F U C K and is so sweet I got six cavities just from looking at it

     She could see her blood starting to spot on the metal support of the bleachers. She could feel her knuckles splitting with every hit. The misty air stung the open wounds. She couldn’t care less. Anything to distract from the problem literally at the back of her mind. Each hit rang out a dull echo through the empty football field. The only other sound was grunts of pain through her gritted teeth. The world had a lot to answer for and unfortunately for that particular support beam, it had to do the answering. Carol Danvers had just become to butt of the universe’s joke and the only way she could handle it without having a complete breakdown was channeling everything into absolute unbridled and unfiltered rage.  

     The only problem with that kind of anger is that eventually it wears you out. She mustered up all of her remaining strength to slam her fist into the support beam one last time before her all the repressed emotions bubbled up and caused her to collapse in on herself. The grunts of rage grossly morphed into sobs that racked through her body and threatened to suffocate her. She felt as if the ground was falling away from her and the nothingness below would swallow her whole. As much as the thought frightened her, she also welcomed it.

      Carol didn’t know how long she sat there crumpled in on herself for. She couldn’t cry anymore. Her body still shook with sobs but she seemed incapable of making tears. She was only pulled out of her emotional whirlwind by the sort of  involuntary “Aah,” sound someone makes when they’ve accidentally and awkwardly stumbled upon something they shouldn’t have. Carol’s head snapped up to see the source of said noise. There were a lot of people both friend and foe that Carol would never want to see her like this, but instead there was another girl around Carol’s age. Dark haired and a bit spindly and, were she in a better mood, Carol would even say pretty. Carol had had a few classes with her before but she had mostly kept to herself and Carol couldn’t recall her name. They stared at each other for a moment both too stunned to say anything. Carol’s body betrayed her, forcing her to sniffle in a feeble attempt to breathe through her nose. _Smooth Danvers._

     “So uh this is where I normally come to do, granted a much less intense version of,” the girl gestured awkwardly at Carol on the ground but seemed to regret the action, “ _this._ But clearly this spot is occupied and you seem to need it a _lot_ more than me right now. Just a tip, track team starts morning drills in like twenty minutes. So yeah. I’ll leave you to it.” She gave Carol some finger guns and began trying to back away.

     “Um wait,” Carol called out softly, causing the girl to stop. She clearly looked uncomfortable, but quite frankly Carol needed another human in her vicinity. “You, ah, aren’t going to mention this to anyone are you?”

     “You mean am I going to tell everyone that I saw the most popular girl in our school reduced to a sobbing mess under the bleachers at the ass crack of dawn?” Carol’s face must have looked terrified because the girl immediately scrunched her face in regret. “Sorry, I realize how that sounded. Of course not. I mean if I did you’d get to spread ‘the weird loner British girl goes under the bleachers to cry at the ass crack of dawn so often she knows the sports team schedules by heart,’ around. Seems like social suicide for the both of us.”

     Carol gave something that sort of resembled a laugh at that. “Well I’m glad we’ve decided not to ruin each other’s senior years. I mean, I guess anymore than they’re apparently going for either of us.”

     “Hey you’ll get used to it quicker than you think.”

     “I sincerely doubt that, but thanks anyway.” 

     The girl looked away and then back at Carol and away again. Carol could see her trying to make a decision. “Do you want to, like, talk about it? I get that talking sucks. But it also doesn’t and hey I’m a nobody so you’ve got nothing to lose.” Another set of finger guns.

     “You’re not a nobody,” Carol started, trying to divert attention away from herself and onto the girl’s own obvious insecurities.

     “Do you even know my name? Because I know yours, Carol,” Carol visibly faltered a bit at that and the girl gave her a self depreciating smirk. Her eyes trailed off to the ground.  “Thought so.”

     “Maybe not. But hey. Everyone knows Weird British Loner Chick.”

     It was the girl’s turn to give the sort of something that resembled a laugh this time. “I could have sworn it was ‘girl.’”

     “Nah we call you chick. Can confirm.” They both gave a soft chuckle before falling into silence.

     “It’s Jess by the way. Jessica Drew for long,” she groaned. “God that wasn’t funny. Why do I ever try to be funny?” Carol actually laughed this time.

     “No, no. I think it’s funny, in like an adorkable way.” _Smooth Danvers._

     “Well thanks. I’ll be here until the end of next semester,” she took a fake half curtsy before deciding to approach Carol and take a seat on the grass next to her. They sat for a moment before Jess sighed. “So are we going to talk about your thing? I’m essentially a diary so no one else is ever going to know.”

     Carol sighed and shifted uncomfortably. Her nose was still stuffed up which was a problem considering the, she now realized,  _very_ pretty girl next to her just saw her as an emotional mouth breathing mess. Did she really want to potentially turn Jess off of her this quickly? Carol wanted to wonder why she cared but decided to table that thought for a different time when the object of said thought wasn’t three feet away from her. Besides, it probably wouldn’t matter if she wanted to or not, because the need to vent was apparently winning out over the slight possibility of making a move in the future.

     “I have a brain aneurysm,” Carol said bluntly. “It’s not fatal. Well at least they _think_ it’s not- which is a whole other problem entirely- but it definitely will be if I’m flying jets.”

     “Shit. Well, I mean, as far as limitations go, flying jets isn’t one you come across too much.”

     “It is if you plan on going into the Air Force. To fly jets.”

     “Oh _shit_.”

     “Yeah. I got into the Academy. Do you know how hard that is?  I was on track to be a pilot and an officer and everything I’ve ever wanted and then they do the stupid physical and just like that my entire future gets tossed in the trash.”

     Jess was silent for a moment. “ _Shit_ ,” clearly she was looking for the right words. “Don’t get me wrong, this whole thing is fucked up and you of all people don’t deserve it; but, the Air Force Academy isn’t the only university. A lot of them still have application dates open. And you’re a good writer. I peer reviewed some of your papers in English. Journalism isn’t nearly as cool as flying jets but-”

     “No Jess you don’t get it. It was the Academy or nothing. No, fuck, it was the military or nothing. I can’t go to college without the military.”

     “Carol, you’re grades are incredible. They announce you on honor roll every semester. You’re in the running to be Valedictorian. You play every other sport. You’re class president. You’re everything a college admissions specialist could ever dream of.”

     “I can’t pay for it Jess! Even with every scholarship I earned, my family only has enough money to send one of the three of us kids to college and my dad is a sexist sack of shit who straight up told me it wasn’t going to be me. So that means one of my C plus average brothers is going to get to go be mediocre in a mediocre college and end up getting some mediocre cushy job while my entire life gets thrown off track because my sexist sack of shit father doesn’t think girls should go to college. The military was my one chance to get the fuck out of here and make something of myself and now it’s gone because the universe decided to say ‘Fuck Carol Danvers specifically’ and put a fucking aneurysm in my head.” Carol stared hard at the ground. She could feel the second wave of tears forming, stinging her eyes like hot needles. Jess reached to put a hand on her shoulder, but retracted it before Carol could even notice the gesture. There was another silence between them.

     “I was a super sickly child and my dad thought he could cure me by injecting me with this super rare and deadly spider venom which, surprise, just made me more sickly. He got arrested for child abuse or endangerment or something.”

     “What the fuck?”

     “Sorry. Shit. That sounded like I was trying to one-up you. I just meant that I get shitty dads and shitty health. I empathize.”

     “That’s so fucked up though.” Carol said, still in shock that that could even happen to a person in the first place.

     “You wanna know what’s more fucked up? My foster mum was his boss and I don’t even know if her taking me in was legal. She just took me and continued to ‘monitor any changes in my health’ like my dad did. I swear she must put more of that spider crap in me because there are days I just feel so shitty for no damn reason.”

     “What the actual fuck?”

     “Oh I’m not done. The reason I don’t know if this foster system or adoption thing is legal in the first place is because one day in the middle of the night she woke me up and said we were moving to the United States and that was that. Pretty sure she used fake passports for both of us too.”

     “Jess-”

     “Oh hold on last part: If I even mention this shit she gaslights the fuck out of me and accuses me of ‘saying these things just to hurt mummy.’ Oh yeah she’s like obsessed with being my mum to a really fucking creepy degree. I think she might actually think I’m her biological child.” Carol just stared at her incredulously. No amount of ‘What the fuck’s’ could do justice to her reaction. “So yeah, that’s why the Weird British Loner Chick is the Weird British Loner Chick.” Jess punctuated her sentence with another set of finger guns.

     “Dude-”

     “Yeah.”

     “That’s a whole fuckin’ lot.”

     “Yeah and I realize that brain aneurysm garners a lot more sympathy for emotional breakdowns than freaky spider-chick who might technically  be an international kidnapping victim, so even though the scales for our mutually assured destruction tip heavily in your favor I’d appreciate it if you didn’t go around telling everyone my superhero origin story,” Jess made a brief moment of eye contact with Carol after her word vomit and affixed her gaze to the ground. “I’m also sorry for dumping said superhero origin story on you.”

    “Well I mean, even if I were the kind of person that would go spreading something like that around I doubt anyone would even believe me just from the sheer level of ‘what the fuck’ that was.”

     Jess groaned and buried her head in her knees. “And this is why I don’t go make friends. I’m just going to get weirder to everyone.” Carol immediately regretted her wording and placed a hand on Jess’s shoulder.

     “No dude, if anything now I know you’re like a total badass.” Jess tilted her head up just enough to give Carol a disbelieving eyebrow. “Seriously! You just told me you got pumped full of fucking _spider venom_ as a little kid and you’re still alive? That’s the most hard core shit I’ve ever heard. Like shit, I’d offer to find you some alcohol sometime but clearly your liver would just filter that shit like water.”

     “Did you just make the teenage equivalent of offering to buy me a drink?”

     “Um I said I _would_ if you didn’t have some super liver that would prevent you from getting hammered in the first place,” Carol joked, feeling the heat of a faint blush on her cheeks. She removed her hand from Jess’s shoulder, instead opting to place it in her own lap.  

     “Just needed to be sure. I need one good high school story to tell my future children and ‘one time the most popular girl in school offered to pay her friend with a fake to go buy alcohol for me but figured it wasn’t worth it because my liver probably developed super powers from being intentionally poisoned as a child,’ seems like it could work.”

     “I mean I think ‘one time the cute british loner chick found me under the bleachers and dumped her entire life story on me which included being experimented on by her dad with spider venom and possibly getting trafficked into the United States so her foster mom could continue her dad’s work’ one-ups that one,” Carol teased, nudging her shoulder against Jess’s.

     “Cute?” Jess asked.

     Carol, blissfully unaware of what she had let slip, chuckled. “I try.”

     “No I mea- never mind.” A silence fell over them for a beat. “Do your knuckles hurt?”

      Carol instinctively flexed her fingers, checking over her hands. “I wanna lie and seem though and say no but, yes very much.”

     Jessica instinctively reached out for her hands to examine them. Carol winced at the initial contact but soon relaxed into Jess’s gentle touch. Jess furrowed her brow as she lightly trailed her fingers right along the edges of Carol’s wounds. Carol braced herself for a sharp pain that never came as Jess carefully skirted her fingers just far enough away from the breaks in her skin.

     Carol studied Jess for a moment. Worry sat well on her face. The mix of concentration and concern blended beautifully into an expression of pure focus. Carol could have sat there staring at Jess for a lifetime. _Or rather what’s left of a lifetime,_ Carol added bitterly to herself. The notion was cut off when Jess suddenly looked up and managed to lock eyes with Carol. She hadn’t taken much notice of Jess’s eyes before as she always managed to train them on the ground or right past Carol. But now with the first direct eye contact between them, Carol felt her heart skip a beat when she noticed the brilliant bright green color of her irises. Jess must have felt a similar sentiment about Carol’s eyes because she held the eye contact between them longer than Carol would wager Jesshad ever held with anyone in her life.

     Jess broke the shared gaze and turned her face back towards Carol’s hands which she still held onto. Carol swore she saw a pink blush paint Jess’s cheeks. “You broke the skin really badly but I don’t think it’ll scar. If it doesn’t it won’t be too severe. I don’t have any bandages or anything though so. Yeah.” She awkwardly removed her hands from Carol’s and Carol had to fight the instinct to grab them back and keep the contact between them.

     “That’s alright. I mean, it wouldn’t be fair of me to expect some random stranger to be able to take care of my bloody knuckles, ya know?” Carol teased.

     “So what’s your dad going to see when he sees your hands all busted up?”

     “I don’t even know. Sometimes he’s a enough of a sexist sack of shit that he doesn’t even pay attention to me. Which will be ideal until these heal up,” Carol emphasized by attempting to close and open her fists through the pain. “But other times he’s the type of sexist sack of shit that exists only to control women’s bodies which means not only will I get fucking blown up on, but I’m going to have to explain why I was punching metal support beams at school.”

     “I think finding out you have an inoperable brain aneurysm should be a get out of jail free card for that.”

     “You know, it really should be. The problem with that is I haven’t told my family yet.”

     “Oh,” Jess paused. “May I ask why? I mean I get sexist sack of shit dad and all but… kinda seems like a big thing to keep from your family. And a hard thing to keep at that.”

     “Would you tell your foster mom if you were in my shoes?” Jess was silent, relenting to Carol’s point. “My dad doesn’t approve of my going into the military. He almost kicked me out of the house when I told him I was talking to a recruiter. If he found out I couldn’t get in because of my physical I’d never hear the end of it. I’m eighteen so my parents don’t have to have access to any of my medical stuff if I don’t want them to so I figured I can just keep it to myself.”

     “Who have you told?”

     “You.”

     “Not any of your friends?”

     “Well I think spilling our guts out about are terrible health and family situations makes us friends now,” Carol caught slight smile Jess gave at the comment, “But, no. I don’t need everyone treating me like a charity case. I mean have you watched Steve interact with anyone before? He’d treat me like a little injured baby bird until he went off to Basic. And even then I’m sure I’d get a letter from him every day as soon as he’s allowed to write back home. Tony would play it off with a joke but I know he’d be worrying about it every second of every day. And then he'd try to throw money at it like he does with every problem he can't solve. 'Hey Danvers I need someone to come to Venice for Christmas Break also here's a brand new car for no reason at all. What? Brain aneurysm? Wow I completely forgot, take the car Carol.' That little freshman girl Kamala would be heartbroken. Not to mention everyone else. Nah, worst case scenario I kick the bucket and they all had some time with me that actually felt normal rather than trying to make it super ‘meaningful’ or whatever.”

     “You don’t seem like the keeping secrets from friends type,” Jess replied, nudging Carol with her shoulder.

     Carol involuntarily blurted out a quick laugh that sounded cold and disingenuous. “Yeah, well I do try to come off that way so people think I don’t have secrets in the first place. I mean literally no one knows that I’m-” Carol forcibly stopped herself. She had poured out enough of her soul to Jess today and while she had let herself share a lot of vulnerability with her, Carol wasn’t quite ready to be _that_ vulnerable with anyone.

     However, there was a spark in Jess’s eyes. One of recognition and kinship. Maybe the way Carol trailed off had let on more than she intended. “Er, me too,” Jess said quietly with a small waver in her voice.

     “Oh! Really?” Carol mentally fist pumped, but tried to keep her voice calm and cool. “Do you, uh, have a preference or are you more of an anything goes sort of deal?” Carol didn’t know why she was speaking in code, but Jess seemed to pick up on what she meant.

     “The former.”

     “I’m the latter. But that’s real fucking neat!” _SMOOTH DANVERS!_ “I’ve never had anyone I can really talk to about it.”

     “Me neither. If my foster mum found out she might actually kill me. She’s always pushing that I’m expected to have plenty of children so I can pass on my ‘exquisite genes,’ which really seems to circle back to that spider crap and I’m not a fan of the implications of that.”

     “Yeah if my parents ever found out I’d be a lot more disowned than if I was still going into the military. Even my mom wouldn’t be okay with that and she’s usually quietly supportive of me.”

     “Aren’t we a pair? A couple of possibly dying girls with shitty home lives and another thing they’re too scared to say out loud because they’re having breakdowns under the bleachers and the track team starts practice soon and who knows who might overhear them,” Jess laughed. Out of the corner of her eye Carol watched Jess tentatively place her hand in the space between them on the ground, trying to look away from it as to make it seem natural rather than deliberate.

     “Yeah,” Carol agreed with a giggle. She slowly placed her hand near Jess’s, trying to remain casual. “Kind of feels like we were meant to meet this morning.” She scooted her hand a bit closer to Jess’s.

     “Kind of,” Jess repeated, scooting her hand a little closer to Carol’s.

     Their little fingers brushed and Carol’s stomach suddenly gave birth to a fuck ton of butterflies.

     “You know. Back when we had English together that one year, I wanted to introduce myself to you,” Carol didn’t move her finger away from the contact.

     “Oh yeah?” Jess prodded. She didn’t draw her hand back either and Carol’s butterflies scrambled around her stomach even faster than before.

     “Yeah. I used to try to catch you after class but you always rushed out to your next one and I didn’t know where your locker was or what your next class was.”

     “So what made you want to talk to me?" Jess prodded.

     Carol felt the strongest blush she had all morning flare up on her cheeks. What was she supposed to say? ‘Well I thought you were super pretty and I spent a lot of time staring at the back of your hair which is also super pretty.’ Nope. ‘I felt immediately attracted to you when I first saw you which kind of helped me confirm I was bi.’ _Absolutely_ not. She needed to come up with something quick though. “I never saw you talking with anyone and when I did catch glimpses of you outside of class you were always alone. I thought you could use a friend.”

     “Oh. A friend. Yeah.” Carol could swear she heard a twinge of disappointment in Jess’s voice.

     “But I’m sort of glad we didn’t meet until now. I mean I feel bad for not reaching out and you having to be on your own until now, but I think this is the moment we were meant to meet. I don’t know about you, but I would have never opened up to you about any of this if we had already been friends for a while.”

     “I don’t think I would have either. Easy to dump everything on a stranger you might not interact with ever again rather than a friend you have to deal with every day.”

     “Right. Totally.” Carol paused for a while. “I mean. I don’t want to not interact with you ever again,” she confessed in one of the quietest voices she ever spoke in. Both of their faces were locked on the ground in front of them, too afraid to look at eachother. Their hands were still connected but Carol’s butterflies had died in favor of a pit in her stomach dug by vulnerability and fear.

     “I don’t not want to interact with you ever again either,” Jess replied almost as softly as Carol. She turned her face slightly toward Carol again.  “Er, It’ll be hard though. With my foster mum and all.”

     “Right, yeah.” Carol responded, mirroring Jess’s action. There were those damn eyes again, matching the vulnerability Carol was feeling right in that moment. “I mean, hey, we’ll always have the bleachers,” she half-joked.

     “Yeah,” Jess agreed. Carol’s eyes flitted down to Jess’s lips of their own accord. She gulped hard and forced herself back up to Jess’s eyes a second before Jess brought her eyes back up, apparently having the same momentary lack of focus. They looked at each other fearfully and Carol understood she would have to move first. Carol had done this dance before and she knew Jess probably hadn’t.

     She leaned forward ever so slightly, not wanting to scare Jess. To make sure Jess really wanted this. Jess took Carol’s cue and began shakily moving forward. Carol brought up her hand not currently on the ground to tuck a lock of hair, behind Jess’s ear, ignoring the the slight sting the strands gave her torn up knuckles, and then tenderly placed it to cup Jess’s face. Her eyes began to shut. Her heart raced. They were a breath apart and-

     The blare of a whistle cut through the air. In direct contrast to their slow pace to come together, they pulled apart so quickly Carol feared she might have given herself whiplash. They pulled their hands back right against their sides and refixed their eyes to the ground. Carol wanted to scream, but the sounds of the track team’s feet hitting the pavement behind them encouraged her not to make any loud noises. She gazed back over at Jess who looked as though she was about to cry. Carol’s heart shattered at the sight and she wished she was brave enough to take Jess in her arms and kiss the ever-loving fuck out of her, regardless of whoever might be able to see them if they turned their head towards the bleachers during their laps around the track.

     But she wasn’t.

     Jess inhaled sharply, bringing up her head high to fake a sense of being okay, and then let out an audible exhale through her mouth. She pulled her shoulders back and began to stand up. “The team’s morning practice is only about thirty minutes and I still need to get breakfast from the cafeteria so I should go,” she said mechanically. She grabbed her things and began to walk away when Carol shot up to her feet. She reach out and grasped Jess’s hand as if her life depended on it. This couldn’t end like this. She wouldn’t let it. “Wait!” Carol pleaded.

     Jess stopped and gathered the courage to look over her shoulder at Carol’s desperate face. She needed to say something. Anything. Just to let Jess know that even though she was scared, she still wanted this.

     “There’s a coffee shop. They open early and they have good pastries. I go there sometimes for breakfast,” she blurted out. Jess gave her a quizzical look. “It’s a pretty short walk from school so you could still leave home the same time you would normally would and not make your mom suspicious. Would you maybe want to go get breakfast with me tomorrow morning?” Carol watched a wave of relief wash through Jess.

     “This may seem like a dumb question but: do you mean with you or _with_ you,” she quietly laughed. “This all really new to me and I just don’t want to assume.”

     “ _With_ me for sure.”

     “Then I would love to,” Jess answered, smiling softly as she fiddled with the strand of hair Carol had pushed back earlier with her free hand. Carol’s grip on her hand loosened until just the pinkies that had been connected earlier were gently wrapped around each other.

     “It’s a date then.” Carol quickly glanced over towards the track field and in a brief moment that made her feel more like herself than she had since being told of her aneurysm, decided to be brave. She quickly leaned over a gave Jess a light peck on the cheek causing the other girl’s face to turn the brightest shade of red Carol had ever seen on a human face. Carol couldn’t help but laugh. “See you tomorrow.”

     And with that she ran off. Electricity running through her veins and looking forward to the days to come.


End file.
